NINE
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 8
The neat little house in its neat little planned development was lighted from top to bottom, and this time Archer had ordered crime scene tape surrounding the whole house and yard.
Neighbors in the mostly full development remained in their own yards, but some had migrated toward fences with other neighbors, to talk, to exclaim, to wonder. And to stare toward the inexplicable.
Inside the perimeter that only law enforcement and their acting medical examiner and her assistant had entered, a few uneasy deputies hovered here and there, staring at the lighted front porch where a murder suspect sat in a white wicker chair, hands cuffed but still smiling, a faintly inquiring expression on his pleasant face as he looked at the sheriff and two of the feds.
Chief Deputy Katie Cole was inside the house with their acting medical examiner and her assistant.
Archer had sat down in the neat wicker chair that was separated from the other one by a small table and which made up the attractively staged front porch.
It seemed surreal to Archer. It was surreal.
He looked at Hollis and DeMarco, both leaning back against the white-painted railing side by side, only a couple of feet from the chairs, studying the murder suspect with calm, thoughtful eyes.
“He sold me my house,” Archer said to them, wondering vaguely if surreal was going to be his new normal.
“And I know you’re happy with it,” real estate agent Elliot Weston said with his pleasant smile. “I’m very good at my job.”
Archer drew a breath and tried again, as he’d already tried several times, to get the answers he needed and quite desperately wanted. “Elliot, why did you kill them?”
“Kill who, Jack?” He looked puzzled.
“The couple you were showing this house to. The couple lying dead on the kitchen floor, shot with what appears to be your own gun. Why did you kill them, Elliot?”
Weston shook his head, clearly puzzled. “I don’t know why you’d say something like that, Jack. I’d never kill anybody. You know I’d never kill anybody.” His voice was mild, his eyes guileless.
Trying a different tack, Archer asked, “Then what are you doing here, Elliot?”
“Well, this house is one of my accounts. And I stopped by here on my way home just to make a few notes on my phone,” Weston explained, pausing a moment because he lifted a hand to gesture, perhaps even to produce the cell that Archer had earlier removed—along with everything else in his pockets—from his person. It was only then that he seemed aware of the handcuffs. “Why am I wearing handcuffs, Jack? Is this some kind of silly joke?”
“Christ, I wish it were.” Archer looked at the agents. “You two haven’t said much.”
Hollis frowned slightly as she looked at Weston. She kept her voice quiet as she said, “Well, he’s feeling pretty much the way he looks and acts. Calm and a little puzzled. But his aura . . .”
Archer blinked. “His aura?”
“Mmm. One of the tools in my toolbox. Everyone gives off an electromagnetic aura; some of us can see that. Tends to show me someone’s mood even if I can’t read them any other way. And whether they’re holding in too much emotion, too much energy. Or fighting off some kind of attack.”
“Attack?” Archer really wanted this day to be over.
“Energy, usually. The really odd thing is . . . he doesn’t have an aura.”
“Sure?” her partner asked her, his voice quiet as well.
“Yeah. The energy doesn’t seem to be interfering with that. I mean, I can see everybody else’s, so if he had one I should be able to see it. I don’t. And I haven’t a clue what that means.” She looked at DeMarco. “Are you getting anything?”
“Same as you. He’s calm, he’s puzzled. Not really thinking about anything. In fact, his mind is almost completely blank, at least as far as surface thoughts go. He forgets about the cuffs until something draws his attention to them. And he has no idea what the sheriff is talking about. Even more, he doesn’t really care.”
Archer looked at them a moment, then rose and gestured toward the nearest deputy. “Matt, you and Kayla take Mr. Weston back to the station. Don’t talk to him. Don’t ask him any questions. Just put him in a cell and keep an eye on him.”
“A close eye,” DeMarco murmured. “I wouldn’t leave him alone, Sheriff. Not until we figure out what’s going on here.”
Archer nodded to his deputies. “Somebody keep watch. Don’t leave him alone at all.”
“Copy that, Sheriff.”
Somewhat gingerly, Deputies Matt Spencer and Kayla Nelson each took an arm, helped Weston to his feet, and led him off toward their cruiser. He could be heard asking them if they could stop for coffee.
Weston was smiling as if he didn’t have a care in the world.
When they were out of earshot, Archer stared at the feds, his gaze roaming from one to the other, finally settling on Hollis. “Auras? I know people give off energy, plants, all living things, but—you can see that? Colors around people’s bodies? And you’re seeing that around everybody else but not around Weston?”
She nodded, utterly matter-of-fact. “And about what I’d expect. The colors all mean different things, different emotions. There are a lot of colors around everyone else I’ve seen today, and more now because everybody is tense, edgy, and feeling a lot.” She frowned again and rubbed the back of her neck suddenly. “I’m sensing those too. Neighbors are scared, your deputies are horrified, and—you don’t know quite what you’re feeling.”
“Good guess.”
Hollis offered him a faint, rueful smile. “Not a guess. We all have a primary ability; most of us have at least one more, and some of us more than one more. My primary ability is as a medium. And I can see auras. But I’m also an empath.”
“You see dead people.” His voice was stony.
“And talk to them.”
“Empath. Empathy. You feel what other people feel?”
“Yeah. New ability for me, so not really under control. Sometimes it takes us a while to adjust.” She rubbed the nape of her neck harder.
Archer stared at her a moment, then looked at DeMarco. “And you?”
“Telepath.”
“So you read minds.”
“Not all minds. None of us can control our abilities a hundred percent, and none of us can read every single individual we encounter. We’ve theorized, and science has pretty much backed us up on it, that each individual human mind has its own frequency, as unique as a fingerprint. Virtually all telepaths have a limited range. Think of it like a radio. I can pick up . . . stations . . . within a certain range of frequencies, but there are frequencies beyond my abilities to tune in.”
“Can you—”
“Yes, I can read you.” DeMarco didn’t offer more, just looked at his partner, a slight frown drawing his brows together. “If the effects of the energy don’t lessen at all even after dark, then more than one of us is likely to be affected with or without shields.”
She stopped rubbing her neck and straightened, frowning up at him. “Well, I don’t feel the energy lessening, but not intensifying either, not the way it was before dark. Thing is, I’m not sure I could tell at this point, at least not unless the difference was really strong.”
“Emotions getting in the way?”
“Oh, yeah. And that crawly feeling all over, especially on the back of my neck, is worse. Distracting.” She drew a quick breath. “On top of everything else, I don’t think we’re done, even for the day. Something else is going to happen.”
Archer, pushing aside the intense discomfort of even the possibility that his thoughts might well be an open book to one or both of the feds, spoke up then to say, “You can predict the future too?” He was a little surprised at the mildness of his voice, since he wanted to yell and break things.
“No, thank God,” she said with definite feeling. “It’s . . . I think it’s still the empathy. There are so many emotions it’s hard to sort through them, but . . . I can . . . feel somebody out there struggling. Fighting against whatever he’s being urged to do.”
“Urged?” Archer managed.
She stared at him. “Sam Bowers blew his brains out, leaving a note that said, ‘Just me, not them,’ as if arguing with someone who wanted him to kill the rest of his family too. Leslie Gardner slaughtered her entire family and then went to sleep and remains asleep; I’d say she lost the argument, and it might just have broken her mind. For good. Elliot Weston shot and killed two clients—and can’t seem to remember a thing about it. Or care at all. Please tell me you don’t believe things like that are just happening, randomly in a single day in your nice little town, without being driven by something external.”
KIM LONNAGAN STUDIED her husband rather anxiously across the supper table. She hadn’t been a cop’s wife all that long, and in a normally peaceful little town like Prosperity the job wasn’t nearly as dangerous as it would have been somewhere else, so anything other than brief worry was somewhat alien to her. But this day had been unsettling and more than a little frightening.
Talk had been flying ’round all day, carried by mail carriers and the checkout people at the grocery store and neighbors, and even if nobody was clear on details, it was definite that people had died today, died horribly.
So Kim was worried and anxious, and not a little bit scared.
Her husband’s preoccupied air and expression weren’t helping things.
“Jim?”
He looked at her, his normally clear gray eyes sort of . . . odd. Holding a kind of flat shine. For no reason she could have explained, a cold shiver rippled up Kim’s spine.
“What is it?” he asked politely.
“You’ve hardly touched your supper.” It was the only thing she could think to say, the only thing that seemed normal.
He looked down at the plate of spaghetti, the crisp garlic bread, the nice salad on the side. Then looked back at his wife. “I’m sorry. You went to all this trouble. And it looks great. I’m just not that hungry right now. I’m sorry.”
Kim had the scary feeling that he wasn’t really apologizing for not tasting his supper, or for the “trouble” she’d gone to fixing it for him. As she did every single night.
“Jim, you don’t sound like yourself,” she said a bit unsteadily.
He blinked, then smiled. “Do I sound like somebody else?” he asked in that odd, polite tone.
“What?”
“Do I sound like somebody else?” The flat shine that seemed a veil over his gray eyes increased. “Do I sound like your lover?”
Kim literally felt the color drain from her face. Not from guilt, because she’d done nothing to feel guilty about. But because infidelity was something she was abnormally sensitive to; she’d watched her parents’ marriage break up because of her father’s chronic cheating. But not before they’d torn each other to emotional shreds and hurt their children dreadfully in all the turmoil.
And Jim knew that.
Finally, she managed to force words out, hearing them shaking. “Jim, I don’t have a lover except for you. I love you. I would never betray you like that. I couldn’t. You know I couldn’t.”
His head tilted slightly, and though his strangely veiled gaze was fixed on her, he seemed to be listening to something else. “How could I know that?” he asked almost absently. “I’m at work all day. Sometimes all night. And you’re here alone.”
“Jim—”
“Alone. And so tempting. Tight jeans and a blouse I can almost see right through.”
“Jim, sweetheart, listen to me.” She held her voice as steady as she possibly could. “I love you. I don’t want anybody else. I swear to you, I don’t want anybody else.”
He didn’t seem to hear her. “I have to work tonight. I have to leave you alone. For hours and hours. But you won’t be alone, will you? Because I’ve seen them watching you. The men in the neighborhood. I’ve seen them. They want you.”
“Jim, I would never cheat on you. You have to believe that.” It was just a whisper, all she could force through a throat clogged with fear and misery.
He rose slowly from the table, almost as if every muscle hurt, and his distant gaze saw right through her. “I have to go to work,” he said. “But . . . I can’t leave you here alone, can I, Kim? I can’t trust you here alone.”
She was on her feet as well, moving instinctively to put herself between the kitchen and his work gun belt and service weapon, lying on the living room coffee table. Even though there was a small gun safe on his nightstand for his service revolver, something required by his job, they didn’t have to be so careful with his other guns when it was just the two of them in the house, he had explained to her. Not yet. Not until they had kids.
“Jim, you trust me. Just like I trust you. It’s so important to both of us, that trust. You know it is.”
He moved around from his side of the small table, stopping less than an arm’s length away from her. “I don’t think I want to leave you here alone,” he said. “I don’t think I can trust you. Or them. The men all around, watching you with their lustful eyes.”
It took all the courage Kim had not to back away from him, and her own fear of him hurt her. “No, Jim. None of them watch me. And I don’t care about them. I love you. I love you so much.”
She had come home from afternoon errands full of horrified gossip and speculation.
He had come home from his own afternoon errands with something unusual, with more guns, saying only that they couldn’t be too careful with all the craziness going on in Prosperity, that he planned to buy a big gun cabinet and keep it in the basement, safely locked. While she had gotten supper ready, he had spent nearly an hour in his den with the guns, saying he had to clean them.
Kim had been only vaguely surprised then.
Now she was terrified.
“Jim—”
He stared at her, his hands coming to rest lightly on her shoulders. “You love me?”
“You know I do. More than anything.”
His hands slid upward until they closed gently around her throat, and he smiled almost sadly. “I wish I believed that, Kim. I really wish I did.”
ARCHER DREW A breath, trying to fight against the insanity of this. “External. Okay, I’ll buy that. Maybe it’s . . . some new kind of disease, making people crazy. Something that’s contaminated the water or the food supply. Something only some people are affected by. I could call the CDC, and—”
Hollis cut him off. “And before they did anything else, they’d ask Jill and your local doctors about symptoms, and they’d be told that Leslie Gardner appears to be fine, normal bloodwork, just sleeping. That bloodwork on Sam Bowers came back normal. That Elliot Weston, when his bloodwork is done, will also appear perfectly normal. No drugs. No pathogens. No signs of any organic disease or infection.”
She held her voice level. “It isn’t a disease, Sheriff. It isn’t something in the water or the food supply. The CDC is no more equipped to handle what’s happening here than you or your excellent deputies are. Because what’s happening here is nothing natural. Not even some new disease. What’s happening here is weird and crazy. And that’s our specialty. It would help a lot if you could believe that.”
“I don’t know what I believe,” he said, holding his voice quiet with an effort that showed. “Just . . . tell me you and your team can do something about this.”
“We’re going to do our best,” DeMarco said. Then he surprised Archer somewhat when he reached out and took his partner’s hand, holding it firmly.
Hollis immediately looked less tense but frowned up at her partner. “You shouldn’t—”
“I know it’ll interfere with what you can pick up, but you need a break,” he said. “And if whoever you’ve sensed is still struggling, maybe we have a little time.”
“I’d hate to bet his life on that,” she said. “And the lives of whoever else he might be struggling not to kill.”
“You still need the break,” DeMarco insisted. “This thing’s just getting started, and it’ll be a lot worse before it’s better. I’m betting you’re the one who’s going to hold the team together for the duration.”
“Oh, shit, don’t say that.”
“You know it’s true. You’re team leader.”
“They don’t even know how to be a team.”
“Which is why they need you. You can—forgive the term—empathize with most if not all of them because of your own abilities and experiences. I can’t even empathize with Dalton, even though he’s another telepath.”
“I still think he may have the best defense of us all,” she said, then frowned and said, “or the most vulnerability. Just depends on how his rage is affected by all this damned energy. Bishop didn’t give him a gun, did he?”
“Of course not. None of them will be armed until we have some idea of who might be affected and how. And possibly not even then.”
“I’m worried about Reno. Her ability is wholly receptive, and unlike Sully she’s never needed a shield. She’s wide open. If all this energy is looking for vulnerable minds, it won’t find one in hers, I know that, but it’s bound to have some kind of effect on her. And it’s likely to be a negative effect.”
Archer drew their attention, silently making a “time-out” gesture with both hands. His face was very calm.
Hollis wasn’t tempted to laugh. “Sorry. I know it’s confusing,” she told the sheriff. “Baffling, crazy, unbelievable—whatever you want to call it. But it’s real. What’s happening here is real. You get that, right?”
“I’ve got seven people dead since daybreak,” he said in a very, very steady voice. “One killer sleeping and another one who is clearly unaware he’s done anything wrong, much less shot two people to death in cold blood. Believe me, I know this is real.”
“Okay.” Her voice remained calm as well. “We’re real too. Nothing we do is magic. Nothing is beyond the realm of science or the limits of the human mind. We’ve just learned to use energy because we have the natural abilities to do that, and because we’ve spent years working to understand and use those abilities. To . . . home in on frequencies beyond the range of our normal hearing. To see further than most people, and see more sharply, even around the next corner sometimes. To focus our own energy and use it in very specific ways. Because these abilities are natural to us.”
Archer made a slight, helpless gesture. “Okay. Fine. I don’t have to understand. If you can stop these killings, stop whoever or whatever is causing them, and get Prosperity back to normal, I don’t give a shit if you do use magic.”
Chief Deputy Katie Cole came out onto the porch in time to hear that, holding a bagged pistol and looking a bit queasy. But all she said was, “Oh, good, you told him the rest.”
“You should have,” Hollis said somewhat severely.
“Didn’t know how.”
Archer was staring at her, and Katie managed a rather weak smile. “Sorry, Jack.”
“You too?”
“Yeah, since I was a kid. That’s how I knew which unit in the FBI to call. I’d met Bishop a couple years ago, even considered joining his unit.” Her voice was casual, though the hazel eyes were watchful on her boss’s face. “I’m clairvoyant.”
“Which means?”
Hollis answered. “It means she knows things, picks up bits and pieces of information without really being able to explain how.”
He frowned at his chief deputy. “Anonymous tips,” he said somewhat bitterly. “You always said they were anonymous tips.”
“Sorry, Jack,” Katie repeated, then went on quickly. “The doc’s assistant had a print kit, so this has been printed; I think we’ll find only Weston’s prints on it, and that we’ll be able to match the registration number of the gun to Weston. So far, nobody’s tried to hide anything, so I don’t know why he would have used somebody else’s gun.”
“Probably wouldn’t have,” Hollis agreed. “And that means, if it’s his gun, he brought it along today. I don’t think real estate agents normally show homes while armed.”
“No,” Archer said almost absently.
Hollis, aware that the sheriff’s entire world was in the process of being adjusted rather drastically, looked at him with sympathy as she said, “Which means someone or something told him to bring his gun. And I’m betting that someone or something was . . . whispering in his mind while he was showing the house. Telling him whatever it took to cause him to kill them. And then to forget he’d done it, or care about that or anything at all.”
“Why?” Archer demanded. “I don’t have to understand how, maybe, but why?”
“That’s one of the questions we have to answer,” Hollis told him. “And we’ve assembled a . . . unique team for this investigation. Galen stayed behind at the station to wait for the first two, arriving tonight. The rest will be coming in tomorrow. Four more.”
Archer blinked. “Agent Bishop said there’d be more following you three, but didn’t say how many. Um . . . all psychics?”
Hollis nodded. “With differing abilities and differing strengths and weaknesses. The idea is to complement each other, each supplying another tool or two for the toolbox. So we can cover all possible bases in terms of abilities.”
She studied the sheriff and decided to keep things brisk and businesslike. No need to mention the energy . . . dome . . . which she had discovered was eerily visible to her even after dark: a faint reddish glow to the night sky, and softly hissing strands of energy moving high above them like lacy patterns of sheer electricity.
More weird and crazy.
No need to mention that. And no need, she hoped, to go into anything but the briefest details about the rest of her team.
“The other members of the team,” she told him, explaining what they had decided would be cover for the non-SCU members, “have been attached to this investigation because their tools are needed. They’re members of our civilian sister organization, Haven.”
“The FBI has one of those?”
“The SCU has one of those.”
He stared at her. “I’ve never heard of that.”
“Most law enforcement officials haven’t until they have need of Haven’s investigators and operatives—or until we do. Haven operatives and SCU agents have worked together a lot. They’re all licensed investigators. And part of this team. They wouldn’t be if our unit chief wasn’t convinced they need to be here.”
Archer might have said something else, but Jill came out of the house just then and joined them on the porch.
“Preliminary report?” she said to the sheriff.
“Yeah. Yeah, maybe it’ll help us.”
“Help you to convict Weston, sure, assuming he’s fit to stand trial if any of this gets that far. Otherwise, not so much.”
She had examined Elliot Weston briefly when she’d arrived, finding normal vitals and nothing else that had appeared out of the ordinary. Except, of course, for his smiling unconcern.
Archer nodded. “Okay, got it. Your report?”
“What you saw in there is what I expect to find in the posts. Two victims, each killed by a single gunshot from the weapon found on scene. No defensive wounds at all. No sign that they were anything but completely surprised and didn’t have time to run or even try to defend themselves.”
Archer drew a deep breath and let it out slowly. “You think you’ll find the same with the other victims killed today, don’t you, Doc? That they were killed just as it looked like they were.”
She nodded. “I’d rather not speculate too much until I get them all on the table, especially the apparent suicide victim I haven’t seen yet, but it all looked pretty clear to me at the Gardner house that the victims either were subdued by fairly lethal blows before they were mutilated and killed, or else—as seems the case with Mr. Gardner—were taken by surprise. No sign of defensive wounds.”
Archer looked toward the end of the driveway behind the ME’s white van at the dark hearse parked there. They had never needed a coroner’s wagon in Prosperity, so one or the other of the local funeral homes generally transported bodies to the hospital morgue—or directly to their own, if victims had died naturally and there was no suspicion attached to their deaths.
Which had virtually always been the case. Until today.
The sheriff sighed. “A couple of my deputies will help load the bodies as soon as they’re in body bags. They’ll be taken to the hospital morgue, like the others.”
Jill Easton nodded. “Good. Sheriff, the chances are I’ll only be able to get one of the posts done tonight. I’d like to start with the apparent suicide, since that was the first scene you were called to. I’ll get you that report ASAP, then start on the other posts first thing in the morning.”
“Long day for you,” he murmured. “Today and tomorrow.”
“I’m used to it.”
Katie Cole spoke up then to say, “We’ve reserved rooms for you and your assistant at the largest hotel in town, the Jameson. It’s about halfway between the sheriff’s department and the hospital, just off Main Street. Very comfortable, good service and food.”
“Thanks,” Jill said. “It’ll probably be midnight before we can get checked in, but I definitely want a good night’s sleep before tomorrow.”
Katie nodded. “They have room service until midnight; if you think you’ll be later, call the front desk and they’ll be happy to leave meals in your rooms. Sandwiches, salads, soup—whatever will keep best if you’re delayed longer.”
“Appreciate that.” Jill looked at the two feds. “Are you guys staying there?”
Hollis nodded. “Bishop called ahead and arranged for us to have the entire top floor. Since the team is larger than normal, we’ll need the space. Apparently, most of the rooms on that floor have connecting doors, plus there’s a comfortable lounge common space we can use if we need to.”
“Thinks of everything, our Bishop, doesn’t he.” It wasn’t a question. Jill smiled faintly, then said to the sheriff, “You can send your deputies inside for the body bags in about five minutes, Sheriff.” She went back inside the house.
“She knows Agent Bishop too?”
Casual, Hollis said, “Bishop knows a lot of people, especially in and associated with law enforcement and support services. Jill was part of the last case Reese and I worked on, and Bishop joined us at one point.”
“Does he often show up himself?”
“No, not very. He’s a field unit chief, so he tends to be out working cases just like his teams are.”
Nodding an acceptance of that without much interest, Archer looked at his watch and grimaced slightly. “Hardly later than suppertime. Christ, this has been the longest day of my life.” He rubbed his face with both hands wearily, then looked at Hollis and DeMarco. “We still don’t have much in the way of reports or evidence for your team to get started on tonight. I say we go back to the station long enough for me to meet the two team members arriving tonight, toss around a few ideas if anybody has ’em, and then we all should try to get some rest. I don’t know about you, but I’m not looking forward to tomorrow. Just going over autopsy reports takes a lot out of me.”
“Same here,” Hollis murmured.
He’s forgotten about the other potential killer you felt struggling.
Yeah. But no need to remind him right now—he’s got enough on his mind. Especially since I can’t even point him in a specific direction toward that person, far less give him a name. Let’s find out what Victoria and Logan have sensed. If anything.
Probably best.
Oblivious of the mind talk, Archer said to the agents, “I’m assuming we keep Weston in a cell tonight. Should I call a doc to take a closer look at him?”
“I sort of doubt any of your doctors would find much,” Hollis said. “But he needs to be kept under someone’s eye all the time; we should try talking to him again tomorrow. And, if you don’t mind, Sheriff, could you have the deputy with Leslie Gardner notify either you or one of us when she wakes up? Even if it’s the middle of the night? We’ll definitely need to talk to her.”
He looked at her with mild curiosity. “What do you expect her to tell us, assuming she says anything at all?”
Prompt, Hollis replied, “If anything at all, I expect some version of what we got from Elliot Weston. No memory of what happened to her family and no awareness that she did anything at all. I don’t see how she could have just gone to sleep otherwise. I think her own mind put her to sleep to protect her from the horror of what she’d done.”
The sheriff winced. “I was afraid you were going to say that. Dammit. Okay. Gabby was due to rotate off shift hours ago; I’ll send somebody to relieve her.”
“Sounds good. Meet you at the station,” Hollis said.
Archer nodded again, following them far enough off the porch to beckon to two more of his deputies to come to the house.
Hollis caught a slightly wary, slightly surprised glimpse from one of them as she and DeMarco walked past headed for their SUV, and murmured, “Feds holding hands. That’s what they’re thinking, right?”
Calmly, her partner said, “One of them is thinking it must be nice to not have to pretend there’s no personal involvement between partners.”
“I thought I was picking up a little envy from someone close.”
“So you can sense emotions even through my shield?”
“Just the people really nearby, I think. And probably not many of them. You know, we’ve never discussed whether our personal relationship will affect how we’re viewed and treated by any of the law enforcement people we’ll have to work with.”
DeMarco opened the passenger door of the SUV and helped her in without releasing her hand. “Do you care?” he asked politely.
Hollis grinned faintly. “Nope. The married couples in the SCU don’t seem to have any problem, so I don’t see why we would. Will. You’re planning on keeping me inside your shield all night, aren’t you?”
“I am. You need whatever break I can give you from all this energy trapped with us, and you need to sleep tonight. You’ll have more than enough to deal with tomorrow.” He released her hand finally and went around to the driver’s-side door.
The loss of physical contact, however brief, brought Hollis’s abilities back into sharp focus, and as DeMarco got behind the wheel, he both saw and felt that she was picking up something she did not like.
“What?” He frowned slightly as he looked at her.
“Don’t shield me for a minute,” she murmured, staring straight ahead. “I think . . . whoever was struggling is . . . terrified almost out of his mind. Maybe out of his mind. All I’m getting is a sort of desperate terror.”
“Then maybe he can resist.”
“I dunno, maybe.” She turned her head and looked at her partner. “I can tell you he’s not where he was before. Feels like he’s closer. And still moving. Let’s get back to the sheriff’s department. If something happens or has already happened, that’s probably where we should be.”
“Agreed.” DeMarco started the SUV and put it in gear, only then reaching for his partner’s hand. “Between here and there, take a break.”
“Do I have a choice?” she asked dryly.
“No,” DeMarco said, and headed for the sheriff’s station.